1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to driving assist systems and methods for assisting manual efforts by operators to operate vehicles in traveling.
2. Description of the Background Art
There is a need for a driving assist system, which can reliably assist manual effort by an operator to operate a vehicle, such as, an automobile, in traveling. Various driving assist systems of the above kind are known. One example is disclosed in JP-A 10-166889. This known system allows the amount of reaction force at accelerator pedal to increase immediately after the intervehicle spacing has become narrow. The known system determines the amount of such increase in response to a current value of the amount of depression of an accelerator pedal and/or a current value of rate of depression of the accelerator pedal. Another example is disclosed in JP-A 10-166890. This known system allows the amount of reaction force at accelerator pedal to increase immediately after the intervehicle spacing has become narrow. This known system determines the amount of such increase in response to the intervehicle spacing such that the amount of such increase rises as the intervehicle spacing becomes narrower. Other example is disclosed in JP P2000-54860A. This known system determines the amount of reaction force at accelerator pedal so as to maintain the depressed position by the vehicle operator during automatic cruising control and applies the determined reaction force to the accelerator pedal.
The known driving assist systems are satisfactory to some extent. However, a need remains for development of driving assist system and method that can keep a vehicle operator informed of varying environment in a field around a motor vehicle in such a manner as to assist the manual effort by the operator to operate the vehicle in driving.
An object of the present invention is to provide driving assist system and method to meet the above-mentioned need.